Surgical Quality Not Just Related to Volume

Prostate cancer patients who undergo radical prostatectomy by a urologist different from the one who diagnosed their prostate cancer are less likely to suffer surgical complications within 30 days after surgery than those who did not change urologists, a study found.

“This may suggest that patients are responding to aspects of surgical quality not captured in surgical volume,” researchers reported online ahead of print in Health Services Research.

In the study, men who changed urologists between diagnosis and treatment had a significant 18% decreased odds of 30-day surgical complications versus those who did not change urologists.